Re: climbing dromaeosaurs and friends

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 12/10/00 5:00:13 PM EST, scott_hartman@hotmail.com writes:

<< There are certain unambiguous characters that arboreal scansors have the 
 theropods lack. >>

Why should theropods, as, say, the descendants of scansorial dino-birds, 
retain features of arboreal scansors when they are no longer these kinds of 
animals? There are tens of millions of years of evolution separating what is 
commonly understood as a theropod from its scansorial ancestor, during which 
many of its scansorial features--particularly such evolutionarily labile 
features as location of center of gravity, hindlimb-forelimb ratios, and so 
forth--would become lost or greatly modified for a terrestrial, cursorial 
lifestyle. The notion that theropods' lack of arboreal/scansorial features 
(whatever these might be) indicates that these features were also absent in 
their ancestral forms certainly holds no water.